Wavemaker II

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  You don’t say.

  Oh, but I do.

  Roy studied the ugly grinning warden for a full minute. Under whose orders, he asked, as if the time had not elapsed.

  Under these. The warden pulled a sheet of thick embossed stationery from his pen drawer, not from a file, and placed it on the mahogany desk. Roy spotted the letterhead. Corrupt bastard. He checked the signature for the girly paranoid scrawl. Roy sighed. He eyed the warden as if he’d seen some kind of light, which in a way he had. His whole situation was even more deeply twisted than he had imagined. All right. Please see that Will Clemens gets this, he said, standing, pulling the watch box from his pocket. Roy propped it against the dying African violet. I want to hear all about it when I come back. Which will be soon. I promise you. I want to hear just how much he likes it. Please ask your guard to show me out of here. Roy didn’t bother to look at the ugly face again.

  In the car he asked Peter for the remainder of the coffee, which tasted like shit. The turnpike, Peter, he said, straight home now. No detours.

  The windshield wiper kept sticking on Gert’s Volkswagen. A swath of watery murk doused her field of vision. She stared ahead, waiting for a blotch of yellow to appear. She was thinking of her husband, who was very sensitive, took things to heart. She saw the look on his face when she left today: stunned, a little lost, what a man. Gert straightened her pale green cotton skirt, gave it a tug. Nothing funny, she felt like laughing, where was the bus? Half past three, soon. It should be soon. And then what would Lou-Lou want to do. Maybe Gert would take her to Gascon’s market, Lou-Lou didn’t mind errands, not like her mother, the queen.

  Kay the royal terror. Spoiled from day one. And growing up, Gert’s house had been her kingdom. Gert’s mother had only boys until Gert. The aftermath, her father called her, her brothers called her afterbirth and showed her bloody photos from their father’s medical textbooks. There you are, bloodface. Kay, even tiny, knew how to circumvent such tags. Gert’s brother Dwight called Kay an infected pimple, Kay put her butterfly hands on each of Dwight’s fat cheeks and squeezed until he was breathless.

  Lou-Lou woke up again in the late afternoon. It was hotter near the roof and she’d been dozing off and on all day, like she was sick, like she was Bo, or maybe Stella, the girl with the hole in her heart. She curled tighter around her book bag. There wasn’t much room or give, the dusty green baize of the billiard table smelled like the cattails down by the water, like something living that had died. She was hungry now, which made the smell stronger, worse. She listened, then felt her way down off the table, her foot missed the window ledge and she fell down hard, scraping her thigh on the filing cabinet. She didn’t cry, she knew the rules about that. She hid the blood from herself so she didn’t have to think about it. She edged along the concrete floor, between the piles of boxes and tools, not arranged in any way. The light came in big squares through the high windows. She bounced from square to square. She smacked into the lawn mower, and this time she did cry. Very loud. Outside she heard the gravel and the thumps of the garbage cans being thrown against the door. She stopped.

  With a metallic grind the door began to rise. Lou-Lou watched the figure of Rufus Johnsilver, the handyman, appear gradually. Rufus! Did you come to find me?

  Lou-Lou girl. What in the world? How’d you get stuck in here?

  I’m here on purpose.

  You ready to come out on purpose? What are you crying about? Rufus put his hand to Lou-Lou’s cheek, plucked a tear, shaping his fingers like it was a flower. Don’t you cry, Lou-Lou. I’ll get you over to Mrs. Maguire. She’s probably worrying about you.

  Rufus took Lou-Lou’s book bag and her hand and walked across the lawns, through the pine trees, to Gert’s door, where he knocked and called. No answer. We’ll have to just do for ourselves, I guess. They headed back to Lou-Lou’s house, where Rufus had fixed the locks and knew how to break them. The kitchen looked as if Lou-Lou’s mother had just left a moment before. It was a museum to her departure, a stick of butter left out to soften, a pan in the sink soaking the residue of scrambled eggs, tags from the dry cleaner on the kitchen table, ballet slippers under the chair. No evidence of Meemaw, who wasn’t supposed to know about Bo, so she was operating like a ghost. No traces. Lou-Lou felt confused about her, confused that her smart, kind grandmother hadn’t just known something was wrong. Rufus studied the contents of the icebox with his arms folded. Her father said Rufus liked to collect credit cards. Something about bureaus, and when her father stood by his bureau looking in the top drawer, Lou-Lou had come in without saying hello, without knocking, and her father turned, arms crossed just like Rufus now, only her father had no clothes on, but Lou-Lou was just looking at his face, wasn’t thinking so much, except for bureaus and credit cards, Christmas cards, birthday cards. Her father yelled loud, to get out, get out, and she hid in the easiest place to look, under her own bed, and she heard his footsteps, but he never found her. Rufus found her. Well, Lou-Lou, I don’t know what to fix you from this group. Not a whole lot here to work with.

  Also Lou-Lou knew that Rufus was in some kind of trouble with her mother. She remembered the rule about going to Sister Mary Arthur if Rufus tried to pick her up at school. A school rule. She wondered when her mother would be back, she put her feet on the ballet slippers, squished them down.

  Gert always thought that Smitty Sutphin was a lousy guy, knew it by looking at him, but when he didn’t show up by four-fifteen, she began to fear he was a criminal guy. She snapped the Volkswagen into gear and started down the winding road to Holy Cross School at full speed, where one of those nuns had better have Lou-Lou in detention or Gert was going to kill someone.

  Gert looked frantic racing into the principal’s office, she’d already been to Lou-Lou’s empty classroom. She tugged on her skirt, trying to make it stop bunching between her thighs while she explained the problem to Mrs. Oates, who barely nodded, come to Holy Cross after a long career in public service. Mrs. Oates looked at Gert as if she was hysterical, and that kind of excess was a language Mrs. Oates, for one, didn’t respond to.

  Just tell me if she’s here. Did she get on the bus?

  One moment, please, let me try Sister Barbara. Mrs. Oates nodded toward a wooden chair. Gert bobbed and yanked but then understood that until she sat, Mrs. Oates would not proceed.

  Where’s Sister Mary Arthur? Let me talk to her. Please.

  She’s on retreat.

  Retreat! Jesus!

  Mrs. Oates replaced the microphone for the intercom on her desk. She opened the file she’d been studying when Gert came in. Gert sat back in the chair. Call her, please.

  Mrs. Oates depressed the button, spoke into the padded knob, then ducked her head down into her filing cabinet. Gert knew that Mrs. Oates didn’t like her one bit. But Sister Barbara did. Dear child! Gert was red in the face and shaking. Sister, did Ann Louise Clemens get on the bus this afternoon? Mrs. Maguire, Ann Louise wasn’t in school today, I assumed you knew. And then Sister Barbara looked as stunned as Gert. Never came? My God, my God, my God. Gert saw herself dropping Lou-Lou at the curb. Christ, what had she been thinking. Gert had wanted time to herself, just one damned minute, and look what happened. Sister Barbara pressed her entire hand on top of Mrs. Oates’s open file to arrest her attention. The police, Mrs. Oates. Please call the police.

  The train slipped through the Amboys, sunset lavender, cattails high. It was Will’s birthday and Kay hadn’t even talked to him. Rita’s novena lay open in her lap, a new rosary from St. Patrick’s, red. Was there a symbol here? Everything had meaning for Kay some days. It was a discomfort. The lab coat on a volunteer, the scissors held open or closed by the attending physician before snipping a bandage, the name Fordenhoff, pediatric oncologist, the name Ray, neurologist. The color of Rita’s rosary. Kay was working hard, scanning the signs, knowing when to go and when to stop, because if she could get it all right, her son would survive this time. A year ago, she didn’t even know it was possible to work this
hard. What would she do when Bo was well and Will was home. Run for president, Roy said.

  Here’s how she found out Bo was in trouble. She and Will flew to California on a Pan American flight that lasted ten hours. They arrived in Los Angeles and went straight to the Beverly Hills Hotel, straight to the Polo Lounge, as if they hadn’t had enough to drink in the air. But it was very good, she remembered this, the feeling of the cool thin glass in her hand and the comfort of the tall chair, a chair that wasn’t vibrating, and some dislocated scent of sweetness, something luscious and close. Coconut. The lounge was filled with tan women, women in white with bold-looking teeth and hair set high; through this forest came a page holding at shoulder height a chalkboard, and he called her name. Then delivered a telephone. She picked up the receiver, smiled her own bold smile—Will was playing a game with her—but instead of the messenger of fun, it was Gert’s voice, full of the same old worry for nothing. We just got here, you goat, what are you trailing me for. Gert didn’t laugh, and Kay’s glass went warm in her hand.

  She looked to Will. She watched Will for the assurance that nothing Gert said would change anything. In profile, as he was now, he was most remote, it was his eyes she wanted to see.

  There was a fall. A fall off the swing set, but Bo may have hit his head, and the girl, the nice girl they’d brought into their home to take care of the children and study at the local college, she called Gert right away, because Bo was slow to rise.

  Where is he now? Let me talk to him.

  Will had moved into the crowd and wore the chivalrous look of a man secretly bored by these beautiful women, irresistible, she watched the eyes turn, watched them watch him. A high-haired girl stopped him with a something, a question, a thought she needed to share. Highest hair, highest bosom, Kay watched her husband’s eyes assess and release. Gert was talking about the emergency room.

  Gert. The swing set is so little. It’s for midgets.

  He had trouble walking.

  Kay was confused. It didn’t make sense. Bo was big, already five, and the swing set was tiny, they’d outgrown it, she was getting rid of it. She just hadn’t gotten around to asking Rufus to take it down and bring it to the dump. Falling off that swing set would be like falling off a throw cushion on the floor.

  I don’t get it.

  We took him to the emergency room.

  Gert, way overboard, how could he be that hurt?

  They’re keeping him overnight.

  But why? Christ, the minute her back was turned, Gert was playing doctor. Will edged through the crowd. He bounced ever so slightly on the balls of his feet. He looked quick and slim, and when he slid sideways between two dark-eyed blondes, Kay watched his hips.

  Why would they keep him? And where’s Lou-Lou? Kay suddenly felt incredibly drunk, smashed.

  They’re keeping him for some test, they want to take a look at something. He’s having a little trouble walking.

  Kay flagged the page and directed him to fetch her husband, to peel him off the woman in the Pucci blouse. I don’t get it. Her head had turned to stone. I don’t get it, she said, and heard Gert breathe in, take a moment for rephrasing. Will clapped his hands on her knees, pressed them lightly as if he were going to pull them apart right here right now in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel, he looked high and happy. Kay touched his wrist, said, Jesus, put the receiver at her neck, it slipped down and dangled off the bar by its cord. She moved her heavy stone face toward him, put her forehead to his mouth. Christ. I think I have to go home. And he held her as if she were only drunk and sick and that was the problem.

  Rufus had water boiling for spaghetti and Lou-Lou’s feet were on the table, as she was never allowed to do, when the police pulled into the driveway, the blue spiraling light rippling bright into the kitchen. They heard the gravel crunch and the loud whine and crackle of the police radio. Lou-Lou was accustomed to emergency vehicles, but no one was home, so this must be a mistake. A loud angry banging on the porch door. HELLO. HELLO. HELLO. Rufus must have flipped the latch. HELLO. Now the tear of dry wood, that screech. Let’s hide! But Rufus already had the same idea. He knocked over Kay’s ladder-back chair, already running. Out through the dining room into the living room, his big body, long arms ranging out. Lou-Lou followed him to the front door. But now there was banging there too. Rufus plunged toward the master bedroom. Okay. Lou-Lou would hide in the other direction. In the playroom. She raced through to the den and out again to the last room in the long house. She pushed up the switch for the light. Shut it off again right away. That would be a clue.

  The room was a mess, she’d have to be careful. Stacks of paper bags full of stuff for Bo, stuff he barely looked at. All the kids in school, through the sixth grade, had written cards, drawn pictures. More than once. There were whole periods assigned to making stuff for Bo. Holy pictures, for the most part. Pictures of heaven. They made Lou-Lou’s mother so angry she put them in here out of sight. Until the bonfire in the schoolyard, she said. But she didn’t really have the heart to throw them out. And the games, toys, GI Joes, LEGOs, every possible stuffed animal, all that came from the parents.

  Lou-Lou pulled out a stuffed leopard and took it to farthest corner of the room, to the daybed with the baby quilt, got underneath the old leaping-lamb pattern and let only her eyes and the leopard eyes show. The door to the playroom crashed open into the wall. Lou-Lou’s mother hated that, told Bo and Lou-Lou to always open doors gently. Now the man was smashing it open wider as if he couldn’t fit his whole self inside. Come out, you fucking pervert. Get the fuck out now. The man felt along the wall for a switch but just missed it, set low for Bo and Lou-Lou’s reach. Even though his flashlight was bright, he tripped over the first bag of heaven drawings. Fuck. He shone his torch on the bed, then up the wall too fast. His light was crazy, flying all over, not landing in any one place. He kicked over another bag. Reckless. That’s what her mother would say. Reckless, thoughtless, careless. Less of everything. He slammed his hand into the wall, right into the circus poster, smacking the elephant. Another voice yelled from the porch: Hey, O’Connor, I see something out here. In the yard. The man kicked his way out of the room.

  Lou-Lou heard someone crying. It wasn’t Rufus, his voice was low, very low. It was Gert. Lou-Lou edged out of her hiding place and slowly picked her way across the playroom. Sweat smell like a rag for cleaning in the air, that angry guy had a stink about him. Gert was fumbling with a knob on the stove. And then, startled, almost burned her hand. Lou-Lou. All over! I’ve been all over town for you. I can’t believe you would do this. Gert’s face was mottled like a cat had clawed her. The men shouted down by the water, Over here! Over here! Lou-Lou pressed into Gert’s skirt, held the pocket. Thick. All of Gert’s things were thick to hold.

  Who put the water on, Lou-Lou?

  Lou-Lou shrugged. Gert hated that, her boys weren’t allowed to shrug, and usually not Lou-Lou either. Outside, the police flashlights bobbed in reeds like enormous lightning bugs. She knew Rufus would never go down there. He was afraid of the eels. Evil creatures, he told her. The men with the lights barked fuck at each other. They were chasing fish. Lou-Lou stood on the porch waiting for Gert to make all her phone calls, to stop the search. And Rufus slipped out beyond the brand-new garbage pails, a brief flash of blue light on his face. He vanished into the pine trees. The police came up out of the reeds only when Gert yelled out for them: She’s here, she’s safe. But they looked like they didn’t believe Gert, or didn’t care. Finding Lou-Lou had ceased to be the point. They didn’t ask any questions beyond the one about her being hurt, she wasn’t. They stepped into their vehicle and, without turning off the flashing blue light, backed down the drive.

  Roy just needed a little peace. Marital whispers, judicial torpedoes. Basically, he could take it, but peace never hurt. So he came directly to the boat. He’d circle Manhattan. A casual surveillance until Frank Reilly called in with the latest news from downtown. No one’s happy in a courtroom in the summer. Eve
ry day brought a new hassle.

  But when Peter dropped Roy at the basin, Captain Peeko said Merrill Mandel had phoned. She had a problem. She was already on her way. Now she balanced a can of Tab on her kneecap, no hands. Grace incarnate, her husband used to say. And Roy was inclined to agree. He felt around for a throw pillow to give himself some dignity. He looked at Merrill, then looked beyond her to the gray-green sky and the puckered black river. How about a swim?

  Roy, that river’s a cesspool. Let’s go inside.

  All the other boats were shrouded for a downpour. Roy nodded. Okay. Inside.

  Merrill ducked her blond curls in the entry to the salon. White leather sofas glowed in the gray light. A family of Czechoslovakians kept things up, made sure no speck of dirt ever became a permanent blemish. Merrill kicked off her sandals, nestled into the sofa. In the damp, the room smelled of lemon wax and Merrill’s Fleur de Lis.

  Okay. Roy squatted down on the ottoman, changed his mind, leaned against the bar. So what’s bugging you?

  That’s a good question. I like it. She ran her small hands along the seams of a throw cushion, then checked the next.

  Something wrong? Someone drop a sandwich?

  He’s on to us. Merrill caressed a hand-sewn zipper. She tried to pry the hidden tab free.

  What are you doing?

  You’ll see. Merrill pursed her lips—perfect really, oblong like a magenta hot-dog bun, puffy on the top and the bottom—near the corner of the cushion and whispered: I’m on the boat with Roy and there’s nothing you can do about it.

  Merrill?

  It’s over. D-I-V-O-R-C-E. You creep. You midget mafioso. She flung the pillow across the room, then dropped her face into her hands and wept.

  Merrill. Sweetheart. Roy sidestepped the pillow and approached the sofa. Merrill?

  Merrill thrust her legs out straight, toes pointed, and lifted her arms above her head, damp eyes searched the ceiling. Her body made a very pleasant V. Roy had seen her do this before, and it always got to him.